


i paint you in the corner of my mind

by gayxiaolong



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe- Killing Eve AU, F/F, Smut, in which winter gets a little obsessed with the thought of cinder, remember the suitcase scene? yeah that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayxiaolong/pseuds/gayxiaolong
Summary: A note sits next to the bottle, letters scrawled in all caps: SORRY BABY xx***or, Winter finds a suitcase full of clothes Cinder picked out for her and lets her imagination take over.
Relationships: Cinder Fall/Winter Schnee
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	i paint you in the corner of my mind

**Author's Note:**

> title from Hallucinations by PVRIS

Winter sets her glass of wine on the dresser, making her way to her bed where her suitcase lays. It returned mysteriously- showing up in her apartment after being lost on her failed trip to track down the assassin. She unzips it, slowly, and finds the contents exchanged. It’s full of clothes- fancy, expensive, and not her own. These had to be worth thousands. 

Her fingers pass over silk nightgowns and high heels, instead picking up a box in the corner of the suitcase. The black box covered in an ornate golden design opens to a bottle of perfume. The label says only ‘ _cinder’_ in a curved script.

A note sits next to the bottle, letters scrawled in all caps: _SORRY BABY xx_

Her breathing stops, heart racing as her mind flashes back to Berlin. Her memories fall back to the vision of an Ace Operative, someone she trusted, with stab wounds in his chest- how she found only the face of the assassin in the crowd as she fled. The burning amber eyes, the curve of her lips, the sultry voice she’s heard in her dreams since- the memory haunts her, makes an impression deep in her mind.

She pushes the fear down, locking her sadness and grief away with every other emotion. This wasn’t the time. Perfume sprays on her wrist, her neck, and she breathes in the scent she now knows was picked out for her. It’s intoxicating- the smell, the memory, the thought, the contents of the suitcase she hasn’t yet gone through. 

Winter knows that there should be a terror here, that there should be a part of her questioning this. She knows she _should_ zip the bag shut, turn it into Ironwood, let him search for evidence. She _should_ let her curiosity seal itself off with all the other emotions frozen deep. She _should_ be scared that she’s being watched, that the woman she’s been investigating knows how to find her. No part of her stops, though. It’s much easier to focus on the dizzying, alluring knowledge that this was all picked out for her. Some truths are easier to dwell on than the what-ifs.

Her hands find fabric next, pulling out a dress nicer than anything she’s ever worn. Without a second thought, obeying the woman who isn’t even near, she strips. With shaking hands, Winter zips the dress up, turning around to look at herself in the mirror.

It fits _perfectly_. Black fabric rests against her skin, tight and smooth over all her features. She thinks of the woman who picked it out- how she must have noticed Winter’s body, imagined it dressed as it is now. Did she think of her skin showing through the cutouts? Did she picture the sight of her collarbones, her neck, all the skin exposed that normally lays hidden by her uniform? 

Illuminated only by a street light shining through the window, she sees herself bathed in warm light. She thinks of flames, of desire, of burning. Hands find her glass of wine again, drinking in the warmth and heady buzz to stomach the thoughts forming.

The dress doesn’t match with the girl in the mirror- an extravagance she doesn’t fit against. She completes the picture, reaching up to pull her hair down. White hair, dark streaks peeking through despite her efforts, falls over her shoulder- curls stark against the black fabric. 

She hears her voice in her head- _You should leave it down-_ the words she first spoke to Winter, weeks ago but a lifetime from where she is now. That night, they made eye contact in the mirror, a sultry voice smoothing over her as she messed with her hair, a voice she didn’t yet know belonged to a killer.

So much of her image in the mirror now is unrecognizable- the skin shown off, the hair she let down for once, the red spreading across her cheeks. 

It’s fitting, Winter thinks, that the woman who took over her thoughts has replaced her body, too, with something she doesn’t know. The person staring back at her in the mirror is a vision of who she’s become, a face far more heated than scared over the thought of a woman so dangerous. 

Her mind is split between attraction and fear, between hands at her neck or lipstick marks trailing the same skin. She doesn’t know which would happen if they were in a room together again- doesn’t know which she’d prefer. 

Winter watches in the mirror as her hands move over her body. Fabric pulls against her fingers as they trace slowly, with more care than she’s ever given herself, over all her features. She lets herself get lost in the pressure of hands on her hips, her chest, her neck. Her hands and mind are lost in the delusion of being touched like this- being worshiped like this- by the woman she’s been looking for.

It’s wrong, she knows, thinking about her like this. Winter’s head shouldn’t be full of her image, she shouldn’t hear her voice in her ears where there’s no sound. Hallucinations eclipse reality regardless- building, crashing, pulling.

She falls to her knees, fabric bunching between her fingers as she hikes the dress above her hips. Winter knows how badly she wants, how much she craves, and finds the evidence to back it up. The fingers she pretends aren’t hers find herself wet, her others resting on her collarbone in the place of lips. 

In her thoughts, the woman sees Winter in this dress and _wants._ In her thoughts, the woman whispers words in her ear that she could never repeat. In her thoughts, there are hands everywhere, her skin alight every place fingers pass over. In her thoughts, the danger alone is nearly enough to push her over the edge. 

Her lips part, a sigh escaping in place of the name she still doesn’t know. She’s never felt so much, never let thoughts have so much power over her. It’s so _much_ \- the pressure of fingers against her, the cant of her hips she’s not fully in control of, the visions in her closed eyes of the woman who put her here. She’s building, breaking, _wanting_.

Her head rolls back, her breathing growing more unsteady as she comes- alone in all but her memories. A crash, as always, follows the high- both more than she ever lets herself have.

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is not normally the kind of thing i write, but i thought about snowfall in a killing eve dynamic and had to do something about it. if you like snowfall i also wrote [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27219829)
> 
> let me know what you think, comments make my day!
> 
> you can find me on twitter @gayxiaolong as well <3


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